Everything about George Byng 1st Viscount Torrington totally explained
George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington,
KB PC (
1668 –
17 January,
1733) was a British
Admiral and statesman of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His career included service as
First Lord of the Admiralty during the reign of
King George II.
Byng was born at
Wrotham,
Kent,
England. At the age of 10 (1678) he entered the
Royal Navy as a King's Letter Boy. He left the navy for a brief time to join an army garrison stationed at
Tangier, but in 1683 Byng rejoined the navy as a
lieutenant, and shipped for the
East Indies. In 1688 he was instrumental in instigating the British navy to switch allegiance to
William III,
Prince of Orange. This naval force took part in the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, and William was installed as
King of England, thus insuring Byng's rapid rise in rank and fortune.
In 1702 Byng was given command of a vessel, the
Nassau, and took part in the
capture and burning of the French Fleet at Vigo. The next year Byng was promoted to
Rear-Admiral. In 1704 he was in the
Mediterranean under the command of Sir
Cloudesley Shovell whose force gained control of
Gibraltar. Byng took part in the
Battle of Malaga, for which he received a
knighthood.
In 1708 Byng had been promoted to full admiral, and took part in the struggle against the
Jacobean uprising in
Scotland. In 1718 Byng commanded the fleet which routed the Spanish Fleet at the
Battle of Cape Passaro, thwarting the attempt of the Spanish to take
Sicily.
Byng was rewarded handsomely for this victory by
George I and given full power to negotiate with the various princes and states of
Italy, on behalf of the English crown. In 1719 he assisted the Germans in taking Messina, and destroyed the remaining Spanish ships which forced the Spanish king to accept the terms of the
Quadruple Alliance. On his return to England in 1721 he was made rear-admiral of Great Britain, a member of the
privy council, Baron Byng of Southill in the county of
Bedford, and 1st
Viscount Torrington in
Devon.
In 1725 Byng was made a Knight Companion of the
Order of the Bath and in 1727, on the accession of George II, he was made
First Lord of the Admiralty.
Byng's administration of the Admiralty was distinguished by the establishment of the
Royal Naval College at
Portsmouth. He died in 1733 and is buried at
Southill,
Bedfordshire.
Byng had 15 children, and two of his 11 sons — Pattee (1699-1747) and George (1701-1750) — became respectively the second and third Viscounts Torrington. His third-eldest son was Admiral Hon.
John Byng, who was controversially
court-martialled and shot at the outbreak of the
Seven Years' War in Europe. His fourth son Hon. Robert Byng was the grandfather of the soldier
John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford.
The first Viscount Torrington's descendants retain the title to the present day.
Further Information
Get more info on 'George Byng 1st Viscount Torrington'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://george_byng__1st_viscount_torrington.totallyexplained.com">George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
